- Thread starter Ryan
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Garcky
Well-known member
Check out this YouTube Channel:
If you go to the complete video lists, you'll find out that Fran loves NASA electronics and has messed with a lot of different systems. I think you'll enjoy her videos, and you might just want to contact her if that's a major interest for you.
Metallitubby
Well-known member
Ryan,
My grandfather was a COMS specialist for Bell Labs on Apollo and Shuttle programs. He gave me almost all of his books, documents, and tchotchkes from that era. If there is anything communication related that may be of value to you, you are welcome to it.
My grandfather was a COMS specialist for Bell Labs on Apollo and Shuttle programs. He gave me almost all of his books, documents, and tchotchkes from that era. If there is anything communication related that may be of value to you, you are welcome to it.
OP
Good god... I can't even imagine.
I Love this stuff but more from the software side. The book "Digital Apollo" was a great read. The details of what they did are amazing. Even taking into account the fuel burn in real time to constantly adjust thrust, etc. to compensate for the weight loss of the expended fuel.
Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (The MIT Press): Mindell, David A.: 9780262516105: Amazon.com: Books
Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (The MIT Press) [Mindell, David A.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (The MIT Press)
www.amazon.com
pcmeiners
Well-known member
Before rents on Canal street( NYC Manhattan ) got ridiculous, and surplus sales restrictions you could buy just about anything related to rockets or aircraft. Not unusual to see gigantic rocket engines, control board, liquid rocket fuel tanks, ejection seats, astronaut suits, ethylene oxide generators etc hanging, or on shelves in the surplus stores for sale.
American Locomotive
Well-known member
Yup, Marc's channel is definitely pretty wild. Really all of his friends are. He hangs out with some seriously intelligent people.
Used to be one down here in La Mirada but they're long gone. Used to have the Rockwell surplus store nearby too but that whole complex is now a shopping center.
tncatadjuster
Well-known member
Enjoyed that, thanks.
jimkinney
Well-known member
I don't have any Apollo era flight hardware, but have a still working lab power supply that came from Marshall Spaceflight Center. Components have date codes from mid 60's.
My uncle bought it at an auction in the 70's.
My uncle bought it at an auction in the 70's.
Gozo
Well-known member
I used to spend my Saturday mornings scrounging around the shops on and around Canal Street. Then pop down to Chinatown for lunch and hop on the subway and head home with a bag full of surplus ****. I’ve probably still got some of that stuff in the back of some shelves in the garage. Life was so much simpler then…
pcmeiners
Well-known member
Yes I was up there a few times a month, or down at the Englishtown market.
Yes purchased quit a lot of materials on Canal, like new 60kv wire which I connected to a very large 25lb neon sign transfer, 35,000vdc@25milliamps. Too bad the wire failed miserably. Nothing like being thrown across a room and being paralyzed for about 30 minutes...got to admit it wasvery EXTREMELY relaxing....I highly recommend shock treatment, but not to that extent. 
Yes purchased quit a lot of materials on Canal, like new 60kv wire which I connected to a very large 25lb neon sign transfer, 35,000vdc@25milliamps. Too bad the wire failed miserably. Nothing like being thrown across a room and being paralyzed for about 30 minutes...got to admit it was
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OP
A few years ago I built the BF/MFT workbench out of 80/20. Some of that 80/20 was given to me by NASA’s Mission Mars lab. I was on a tour with a pal, asked about a stack of it in an alley, and was told to take anything that was previously cut.
I don’t have anything important... but I have lots of vintage switches, console lights, etc… most from auctions in Houston.
I don’t have anything important... but I have lots of vintage switches, console lights, etc… most from auctions in Houston.
Scout Driver
Well-known member
Great video! Learned at least a few things while watching.
Scott
Scott
pcmeiners
Well-known member
80/20, had to look that up. Live and learn
Stuart in MN
Well-known member
I'm a retired electrical engineer. In the 1990s I was a NASA subcontractor (still have my ID badge in a box somewhere.) Most of my time was spent in Langley, VA but I did a little work in Houston as well. I had the opportunity to see some pretty cool old stuff, they had some research facilities dating back decades that were still in use. However, I wasn't able to take home any souvenirs. 
My main contact was a fellow who had been there since the 1940s (back when it was still NACA); he had some interesting stories to tell.
My main contact was a fellow who had been there since the 1940s (back when it was still NACA); he had some interesting stories to tell.willy3486
Well-known member
I have a degree in Electronic engineering and put in for a job being a instrument tech at a place that does engine testing for military projects. As I was talking to them I begin to hear this really loud noise. I must have gotten startled from it as the fellow told me" oh thats the wind tunnel you will get use to it". At the time it was the largest wind tunnel in exisitance. They talked like they really wanted me as he said they really liked people from the college I went to. I didn't persue it as I was just married and it was 2nd shift. My wife worked 1st so I stayed where I was. I have known a lot of folks that worked there and heard some great stories. My wife had a cousin who was Wernher Von Braun secretary at Huntsville. She told some wild stories. I got to sit in one of the Mercury or Gemini capsules once. You would have to be sorter than I am,6ft 2 inches to be in there comfortable. If you were claustrophobic there is no way you could stay in there going up. As far as Nasa goes our daughter is a electrical engineer and if I am not mistaken she has worked on projects them.
cherokee
Well-known member
runit
Well-known member
Thanks....more Youtube time!
just what I need
just what I need
cherokee
Well-known member
And down the rabbit hole you go. There are a few good things out there on this subject.
There was a surplus store on Laurel Canyon just north of Sherman Way in North Hollywood CA. They had all kinds of things, including aerospace surplus. I see it's now called Norton Space Props. https://nortonsalesinc.com/
Cougar
Well-known member
Freind of mine, his dad worked at NASA.
Told me when he was a kid his dad told him, someday we will have little phones we can put in our pocket.
Told me when he was a kid his dad told him, someday we will have little phones we can put in our pocket.
Stuart in MN
Well-known member
One thing about the limited memory available back then is you had to be real economical about your programming...there was no room for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.
Stuart in MN
Well-known member
If this was in Tennessee, I'm guessing you're talking about AEDC in Tullahoma (I used to work for another wind tunnel design firm, there aren't many companies that do that sort of work.) If I remember correctly at one time AEDC had the biggest hypersonic wind tunnel, but the biggest wind tunnel period is at NASA Ames in California. It has a cross section of 80 feet x 120 feet; they can test full size aircraft in it, but the wind speed is only like 100mph or so.
A funny story about the place I worked at: they have a test facility with around ten wind tunnels of various sizes and speeds, it's sort of out in the woods in an isolated area at the end of a dirt road. One night the guys working second shift noticed that a couple teenagers had pulled up in a car and were necking. They were parked right downstream from the discharge of the tunnel that was going to be running that night. When they started up the wind tunnel, it was coitus interruptus for those kids...they cleared out of there pretty fast.
An instructor of mine, way back when, told us they used to have two versions of some programs - 1 with comments, 1 without.
The version without comments could be loaded and run. With the comments, the code took up too much space - was just used for reference.
willy3486
Well-known member
You are correct, AEDC. I couldn't remember what it was but the biggest hypersonic wind tunnel makes sense. Its been over 30 years since I interviewed there so my memory on what type of wind tunnel is fuzzy. I like that area in Tennessee, if I wasn't so established where I live I wouldn't mind living in that area. Back when they closed the barracks and turned it into AEDC my father in law salvaged some of the tin and other stuff from the barracks. He built a barn we now have. I have known quite a few people that worked there. When I wasn't looking for a job I got contacted by them but when I needed a job they had no openings with my skills. Oh well.If this was in Tennessee, I'm guessing you're talking about AEDC in Tullahoma (I used to work for another wind tunnel design firm, there aren't many companies that do that sort of work.) If I remember correctly at one time AEDC had the biggest hypersonic wind tunnel, but the biggest wind tunnel period is at NASA Ames in California. It has a cross section of 80 feet x 120 feet; they can test full size aircraft in it, but the wind speed is only like 100mph or so.
A funny story about the place I worked at: they have a test facility with around ten wind tunnels of various sizes and speeds, it's sort of out in the woods in an isolated area at the end of a dirt road. One night the guys working second shift noticed that a couple teenagers had pulled up in a car and were necking. They were parked right downstream from the discharge of the tunnel that was going to be running that night. When they started up the wind tunnel, it was coitus interruptus for those kids...they cleared out of there pretty fast.
That was true into the late 1980s on the phone switching systems I coded for. But, no comments in the assembly code anywhere - documentation was via flowcharts; no 2nd code base with comments. Debugging was done with hex dumps, knowing where the registers were, OP codes, etc.
Patches consisted of inserting a jump-to-subroutine in the main code pointing to a (small) section of spare memory then a jump back to the main code.
Modern compiled code (e.g. C back then) was deemed too slow. Some ancillary code (e.g. billing records) were in PL/1 and records were written to those big mag tape reels for post-processing.
Then came the 800 network (wow, no more caller-pays toll calls or 10xxx prefixes?) then fast forward to mid-1990s and "The Web" then 30+ years to "The Cloud".
Oh, my, I'm regressing...
cherokee
Well-known member
That is one thing I have noticed over the years. I have done the "computer thing" for a living starting in 1983, with a short rest to work at a dealership in the middle there.
I remember Word Perfect being on 1 360k floppy with the dictionary being on one other 360K floppy. Now the same thing would not fit on a DVD...Yea I know a bit of a stretch but you know where I am going. People are lazy.
Drivers are what gets me, I remember dialing into a company for say a printer driver, couple hundred K at most, now a printer driver is a couple hundred MB.
MBfreak
MEMBER EMERITUS
I have done some stuff for turbine control in NP´s ( Ie 1 hip and 3 lop on same shaft as generator, 1500 RPM)
Only ADA allowed, and had t be totally compact. Typical RAM 32 kByte. Total program less than 164 kByte, running at 8MHz.
The development versions were tested on main frames.
Ola
Only ADA allowed, and had t be totally compact. Typical RAM 32 kByte. Total program less than 164 kByte, running at 8MHz.
The development versions were tested on main frames.
Ola
Blame a lot of it on cheap memory and faster CPU's. You can write bloated code and not have a care in the world for the end user.
I used to compile C code on a dual floppy PC. Source on 1 disk, compiler on another. End of compile... Swap out that disk for the linker.
Ahhhh.... (not) the good old days.
dutchgray
Well-known member
And the really compact stuff was in assembly language straight on the metals, each computer would be different, the real geniuses knew all the tricks, some even the computer designers didn't know about.
What amazes me, even in todays advanced era, is these fellows and gals did what had never been done, created what didn’t exist, and gone to where nobody had. They flung a capsule with people in it to the moon. They did it without instructions.
Amen. If you're a software geek, read Digital Apollo. Amazing stuff.
OP
Im actually building my own cctv/security system… and making it look a bit like a 60s era nasa Mission Control system. Hard to explain, but for obvious reasons it’s not something I want to show off.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see!
I'd think it would be a non-issue with blank displays but your house, your rules. You have to be comfortable.
gpiggaz
Well-known member
The boys are back at it again, This time they have a very obscure piece of Apollo hardware that was responsible for checking the Bus voltage and was made famous in the Apollo 13 disaster:
Very cool stuff, for geeks like me:
Very cool stuff, for geeks like me: